


City Lights

by Midnightdragon2



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parkour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-03 20:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15826233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnightdragon2/pseuds/Midnightdragon2
Summary: After professional parkour free-runner Takashi Shirogane mysteriously disappears alongside his team, a single truth is revealed that will change the way parkour is seen forever. now it's up for a group of teens to topple an empire built on lies and to discover the truth behind a secret left hidden for over a decade. will they succeed, or will the cost for the fight be too high?





	1. Prologue

"Takashi Shirogane. Aged 25. I am a professional parkour free runner." A man sits in a chair in a video on a small screen. As he speaks, he brushes the black tuft of hair covering his forehead back and away from his gray eyes. He has a square face and even sitting there's no doubt he's tall and large, a strong build. Despite his large size, he's clearly kind, he has soft eyes and a sweet voice. "And this video is dedicated to my dear brother, Keith." There was laughing in the background, from someone off screen, and the man's smile widened in response, looking at something or someone behind the camera.

That same man looked down at the video with a large smile, brushing the black hair out of his eyes, though the wind of the city only swayed it back into his face. He sat with his back to a wall, on the top of a large building in England. The first sunny day since he and his team had arrived, mid-May in England was typically wet.

Shiro fast forwarded the video until he saw a pale kid with black hair in the style of an Asian mullet. The kid's purple eyes glared at something beside the corner and his small arms were crossed as he sat in the chair, slouching. "I'm not saying anything..." he mumbled. His voice had an edge, a very determined teen, but Shiro's voice was back, from where Keith was glaring at.

"You just did."

The kid rolled his dark eyes. "Whatever. Fine, my name is Keith Kogane. I'm 18, I'm this bastard's brother, and I'm an amateur parkour free runner." He paused, then frowned. "What else am I supposed to say?"

"What's on your mind?" The screen Takashi suggested, coming into view for a moment before disappearing again.

Shiro felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up, he spotted the owner of the finger that tapped him, Matthew Holt, and relaxed. Matt was a nice kid, with sandy blond hair, nearly golden eyes and a goofy smile, he wouldn't hurt a fly. Then again, he was the kind of kid no one would suspect to be a free-runner, but here he was. "What is it?" Shiro asked, meeting Matt's pools of gold with his own of silver.

"Still watching that video?" Matt asked, reaching up to adjust glasses that weren't there, making Shiro laugh when Matt's fingers touched the bridge of his nose and he was frozen for a moment, registering that he no longer wore glasses, for the fifteenth time since the trip set out.

"Yes. I miss him." Shiro's smile died a little as he spoke. "How could I not? Don't you miss Katie?"

Matt finally recovered from his stupor and shrugged. "A little, but it's only been a week."

the comment made Shiro frown further "I once left Keith for a day and when I came back he had a broken foot. Three weeks to a month, who knows what he'll do." He stared back at the kid slumped into the chair, who was glaring at the camera now but hissing at the video taker.

"Calm down," Matt said, flicking the black hair fluff hanging over Shiro's hair. "You trained him yourself, he'll be fine." 

"Are we ready?" The third member of their party called from the short distance away, making the two men glance at him. Samuel Holt. Unlike Matthew, he had darker eyes and gray hair. He was old and he didn't try to hide it, but Shiro knew this man could scale a five story building in under two minutes if he wanted to. He was the most experience free-runner there, and everyone knew it. He was also their escort, and their main 'camera guy.' He traveled all over the world to show various videos of parkour free runners of people like Matt and Shiro, which he posted online. He was their leader. "We'll be heading down and taking the second part of our set here in a few." He informed.

Shiro and Matt nodded, but Matt glanced behind his father and froze. Running towards them was a group of people, taking the same route the team had taken to get here. "Who are they?" Matt asked. Following his gaze, Shiro narrowed his eyes in a hope of focusing more on the group.. They were coming in fast. Shiro quickly put his phone in his pocket and watched them approach.

"Don't do anything rash, the may be friendly." Sam warned, standing his ground and watching them approach. They didn't look friendly. There were six of them, each large in build and clearly strong, with roughed up faces. They each had a symbol on their chest. Purplish in color and almost seeming to glow in the English sun, they cast a threatening aura over the group all by themselves. They were on the same building in a matter of seconds and when Sam tried to speak to them, they didn't even bat an eye at him, just hit him upside the head and Sam dropped.

"Dad!" Matt shouted, running forward to try to catch the older man or something, but he was tripped and another held him down. While he struggled, he couldn't get up. That only left Shiro, standing alone except for five enemies of unknown origins.

"Who are you?" He demanded as one separated him from his backpack and tossed it aside and another tripped him to his knees. He tried to fight, tried to struggle to get loose, but three people held him down, and Shiro was stilled easily. The leader of the team came up and glared at Shiro, then smirked, revealing teeth filed to points. His eyes almost glowed golden yellow, sending chills through Shiro's body. There was no iris, just a golden glow. "He will do." The leader said.

Shiro felt pain erupt in the back of his head as everything went black.


	2. A Beginning

 “Bet you I can climb the side of the building.”

Those were the warning words hunk did NOT want to hear at 8:59 on a Tuesday morning. Especially not from lance. Trumpets and tubas blasted from the front of the pack of students, where the mandatory monthly pep rally continued. A large banner reading “GARRISION HIGH SCHOOL ROCKETS” in big, red letters hung over where the band was supposedly. Hunk wasn’t short, far from it, but Principle Sanda had this big problem about seniors being up front, and some of those guys were massive, so the smaller 11th graders stuck behind them could see nothing. That also meant that the teachers could see nothing of the students. That being said, Lance was on the middle of the 11th grade pack, standing right next to the wall and glaring at James Griffin. Not good, not good. Both were parkour junkies. They ran and jumped on buildings, lance was a good climber. But this wasn’t good at all. Lance had been strictly banned from climbing on school property.

“Go ahead and do it, McClain.” Griffin dared, crossing his arms and offering a cocky smile, probably thinking that Lance wouldn’t do it. Lance would do it. That was the scary part.

And directly after Griffin’s comment, Hunk was proven right. Lance grabbed onto one of the easier to grab bricks in the wall and levered himself up. Hunk rushed forward quickly enough and tapped Lance’s leg. “Lance, get down! You’ll get caught!” Or fall, but Hunk didn’t even want to think of that possibility.

“Chill out, Hunk, I’ll be fine.” Lance responded, moving his angular face from against the wall so his dark blue eyes could meet Hunk’s brown. “I do this all the time!”

“Do you, McClain? How high do you get?” Griffin asked.

“All the way to the top if I want.” Lance shot back.

“Then do-!”

“Don’t do it!” Hunk shouted over griffin. “Get down, c’mon man.”

“Mister McClain!” Hunk nearly jumped when a loud, surly voice shouted behind him, and lance slipped just a little from where he was still on the wall. Of all people to catch Lance in the act, it had to be coach Iverson. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Um, trying to see the rally?” Lance smiled a little, he was clearly trying to lie. Of all things Lance was, he was not a good liar.

“My office, now.” Iverson commanded. He turned to Hunk with a big frown. “And you too.”

Iverson didn’t even wait for Lance to get off the wall, he just walked off. Hunk, being a good friend, helped Lance down and both followed after Iverson quickly. Better to get this over with.

           

* * *

 

Iverson’s office, for lack of a better word, was typical of a coach. In one corner he had pictures of his teams from various years back, in the front by the window overlooking the boy’s dressing room sat his desk, absolutely covered in permission slips for after school activities and graded papers from the history class he taught. Pidge was sure one of them was hers, probably a hundred but docked to an 80 for being late. The next wall was another window over the boy’s locker room and the final one was lined with basketball and football cutout magnets on the chalk board.

Didn’t matter. Pidge wasn’t here for the grades, or the board, or the window. She was here because she knew Iverson took part in every single pep rally no matter how many papers he needed to grade and never came back until about thirty minutes after the pep rally ended. Which meant his office was the perfect place to waste her time and avoid her problems. Her school assignments were all done so now she just sat underneath Iverson’s desk and edited the video clip of her run the night before. She had to brighten a few things up, then sharpen the gray of the glow with a medium high saturation before she could do anything about the video itself. At least she had the song already picked out.

She heard the gym door open and froze. “Coach Iverson please don’t tell Principle Sanda,” pidge panicked a little when she heard the voice. Hunk, at least she thought that’s who the voice belonged to, wasn’t scary at all. But he was clearly talking to Iverson. And Lance was probably there too. Fuck…

Quickly, she scrambled up and shut herself in the supply closet, making sure to keep the door shut. The closet was packed and it didn’t ever shut correctly. Pidge had to learn that the hard way after a student came in having forgot his phone three rally’s ago. Now she drilled it when Iverson wasn’t in the office. Apparently she could fit in the bottom cubby pretty well.

The door to the office opened just as Iverson responded to Hunk’s question. “I won’t tell her, on one condition.” His footsteps on the ground stopped, but Hunk and a second set of footsteps continued walking until the two metal chairs in the office creaked. Probably lance. They always got in trouble together.

“What’s that condition?” Definitely Lance. No one else had that whiny of a voice.

“Since you like climbing so much,” Iverson explained “You will ‘volunteer’ to do the memorial video as the 1-year anniversary of Samuel Holt and his crew’s death.” The way he said it, as if it was no big deal, just angered Pidge to no end but she wasn’t willing to give away her position so she just stayed silent/

“What?!” Lance shouted. The chair squeaked and Pidge cracked the closet door to see Lance standing up with a surprised look on his face. “Seriously?! Why can’t we do something else, like run extra laps or do fifty pushups. Why a video?!”

“I just said why. Besides, you are the only students who I know for a fact do parkour in your free hours.”

“Pidge does parkour too.” Fuckin bastard. Dragging her down too?

“Except that mister Gunderson wasn’t caught trying to climb a wall or supporting said wall climbing.” Iverson shot back, then stopped. “Actually, come to think of it, I never saw him there to begin with…” fuck…

“Neither did I,” Hunk admitted, he was clearly frowning even though Lance blocked her view. She moved to get a better look to make sure she was right but in the process knocked the door a little bit, making it squeal in protest. Pidge flinched because she knew she was fucked.

Iverson sighed. “Come out of the closet.” He demanded, opening the door and bringing light into the otherwise dark supply closet.

“Technically, I did that three months ago…” Pidge muttered, stepping out.

“Why are you in my office?” Iverson demanded, and Pidge just shrugged, staying quiet. With a low growl, Iverson continued. “Well, now that you know what they’re doing, you’re joining the project. If none of you do it, or if none of you do it well, we’re all going to Principle Sanda.” She nodded, Lance was frowning but not arguing anymore, and Pidge could now see Hunk, who was nodding like he was at gun point. Still, Iverson had to bark “Understood?” again so everyone would get their ‘Yes Sirs’ in now. So annoying.

“Now wait at your teacher’s doors. And don’t let me catch you in here again mister Gunderson.”

Pidge rolled her eyes and walked out behind Hunk and Lance, almost tempted to flip the teacher off. Except she couldn’t afford to be expelled again. She only had so many looks she could pull off.

Once out of the locker room, she turned to both of them, and said simply “Top of the world, tomorrow, 1700.”

“Isn’t that military time?” Hunk asked.

“Yes?” Pidge lowered her head a little and gave a quizzical look at Hunk, who then asked

“Why couldn’t you have just used normal time?”

“Yeah, what time even is that?” Pidge rolled her eyes as Lance butted in. Sometimes she felt like she was the smartest in the school just because people didn’t know half the things she said. Or asked her how she typed so fast. Or really anything.

“Military time isn’t just for the military. Free runners use it to. And it’s Five o’clock tomorrow. Post meridian.”

“Post… what?” Lance asked, obviously confused.

“PM you idiot! I swear, why even try…” Pidge practically stomped back to class, as if she and the two didn’t all have pretty much the same schedule.

She felt Hunk and Lance staring at her as she walked, then heard them following a ways behind moments later, but she pushed it from her mind and continued walking.

 

* * *

 

 

Because of Lance’s love for heights, and ability to accurately judge distances and how far to jump to land something, he magnetized to parkour, especially when he came up to the top of the world for the first time and saw the city from there. The top of the world was the highest building in the city, and Lance never really understood why people called it the top of the world until he saw it from the top, it felt like he really stood at the top of the world, looking over the entire city and the surrounding desert. That was when he first truly felt like he belonged in the free-running community of Avium.

The climb had been long at first, a lot of ladders and jumps that he had to make sure of, the buildings slowly built up to the outer balcony of the Lamna building, the official name for the top of the world, and from there ladders had been bolted down beside drainage pipes and stuff for the kids who got that far to climb up. Lance had watched plenty of pros that first time run and jump on every ledge going up, even skip on one edge of a building. He tried to copy them but they ran ahead of him without much of a second thought towards the twelve year old 10 stories up from the ground. It was noon by the time he had reached the top and by then everyone had already gone, leaving him alone to feel the wind on his face and to laugh, calling those below him ants because that’s how small they looked to him.

Now he stood atop the tower with a frown, looking down from where he had stood three years ago. He stood there often, reliving the memory, but today felt sour. Not only did he have to do schoolwork on a Saturday, but it wasn’t even graded. It was just because he didn’t want to get in trouble.

“Hey, we ready?” Pidge asked, carrying a heavy backpack on his back and coming up the ladder. Hunk came up behind him, and Lance turned back to them with a pout.

“No, what about you?”

“Hold up,” Hunk reached back to adjust his headband. Hunk and Lance often did videos together so Lance was used to seeing Hunk’s running clothes. Like Lance, he preferred a sleeveless shirt and some loose shorts. Not loose enough to fall when moving, but loose so they’re comfortable, though Lance preferred a blue shirt and darker blue shorts and Hunk went all black and yellow with it. Pidge, though, he was surprised with. He wore a jacket. A black and lime jacket over a t-shirt and some jeans. JEANS! It was March in the middle of a desert and she was wearing jeans and a jacket to go running in.

“What?” Pidge asked, noticing Lance stare.

“Aren’t you going to be, like, hot?” Hunk asked for Lance, noticing as well.

“Maybe, if I were the one running. But no, I’ll be videoing you and Lance running and doing all the editing myself.” Good, cause Lance hated the editing part and usually Hunk did it for him.

“So what’s the plan, Mister Editor?”

“You two are planning a course up here. You’re both getting face cams and you’ll be switching who’s in front so we can get some back shots.

“You mean up here?” Hunk asked, pointing to the ground of the building.

“Yes. Problem?” Pidge asked. Yep.

“Hunk doesn’t like heights much.” Lance answered for his friend with a shrug. “I can plan the course myself, maybe he can do some flips or something closer near the ground? There’s a park close to here.”

“Fine,” pidge mumbled, setting down her bag and pulling out a notebook to cross out a considerable amount of words from the page. “Hunk can stay here while you pick a course to run. Be back at dusk, we shoot in the dark.”

“What?!” Hunk and Lance shouted in unison.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get a flashlight. It’ll look better if we do it both in the dark and in the day though. Here.” She pulled out small glow bracelets and showed them to Lance and Hunk. “It took me a bit but there’s 7 of yellow, 10 of blue, and even some green for me. It’ll make it look even cooler. Now get going.” Lance sighed but turned and began running same direction they came up.

By the time he got back, it was only a few minutes before the sun completely fell but he was rather proud of the route he chose. It started at the beginning of the climb to the top of the world, and ended by landing on the ground, where Lance would jump over Hunk and have Hunk run all over the park three blocks over in front of the burned building, doing a bunch of obstacles and jumping off low heights and doing flips and stuff. Hunk was good at flips.

Cameras lined the roof of the building, each one facing a strange direction. Wires ran down from each camera’s stand and plugged into the large air-conditioner-turned-generator, where Pidge and Hunk sat near. “Hey, didn’t think you’d be back before sundown,” Hunk greeted, picking up a water bottle and tossing it at Lance. It was warm, but it was better than the thirst he felt he was dying from earlier.

“What do you mean? I’m always on time!” Lance smiled lightly, but he noticed Pidge roll his eyes.

“Tell that to all 93 tardies for last semester.” He pointed out. “Which, since last semester we only had 88 days of school, it meant that you had to be late to more than one class every single day.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Lance waved the other runner off. “I’m on time on things I care about.”

“Well while you were out me and Pidge set up the cameras,” Hunk started, but Pidge interrupted.

“Actually I set up the cameras. I didn’t want Hunk touching anything. So he read my plans for the shoot.”

“And a little bit of his diary,” Hunk added.

“What?!”

“Just a few pages, really interesting read, actually.” Hunk shrugged.

“Are you-“

Pidge was cut off when one of the camera’s started beeping loudly. Lance ran over to it and asked “Why is it beeping?” While Pidge scrambled up and began looking through the lens.

“It senses fast movement, someone’s coming. Look.” Pidge pulled out a pair of binoculars and handed them to Lance. A group of three guys were running up the way to get to the top of the world. What was weird was they all seemed to have glowing eyes and none of them we’re using a flashlight. They all were clearly runners, they dressed in all black and were moving at an extremely fast speed.

“Okay, so we tell them we’re shooting something and to buzz off.” Lance shrugged, handing the binoculars back to Pidge.

BOOM

With a shout, Lance fell to the gravel of the floor as the building seemed shake heavily. Pidge fell right along with him, and lance wasn’t sure about Hunk.

BOOM

“Someone’s blowing up the building!” Pidge shouted, leaning over the edge of the building to see, then getting up as quick as possible. “We need to get off.” Lance nodded in response and began grabbing what they could. His bag didn’t have anything important in it but he grabbed Hunks and tried to gather what he could of Pidge’s, then stood at the edge of the building expecting hunk to follow.

**_BOOM_ **

The next explosion was the loudest and most impactful of all and Lance nearly stumbled over the edge. “Hunk, copy me, don’t get nervous!” He shouted over the ringing that was now starting in his ears, then without checking to see if Hunk saw, took three steps back and ran as fast as he could, then jumped onto the building next to the top of the world, landing with a roll. Hunk was good at the roll, but never this high up.

He didn’t stop running and jumping over gaps until he was three buildings away from the top of the world, and then he turned around to make sure Pidge and Hunk had followed. Both were at the edge of the building, Hunk looked like he was about to have a heart attack and Pidge was already up looking through the binoculars. Breathing a sigh of relief, Lance went up to pidge. “What happened?” He asked.

“Look,” Pidge handed him the binoculars and he looked through them until he found the three, now six, people on the ledge of the top of the world. Another explosion sounded as they retreated. “They’re blowing up the top of the world.” Pidge said. “I don’t know why, but they are.”

Movement caught Lance’s eye a ways away from the six people, and when Lance saw who it was, he nearly dropped the binoculars. “Is that Keith?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the next chapter will be available i don't know when but thanks for reading!


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